IMPORTANT! If you want to take part in the WOŚP Finale but you do not speak Polish, you will have to join one of the already-existing Finale Centers in your region. The Orchestra has some dozen Centers abroad; a full list will be announced on our website shortly. All documents, volunteers’ IDs, etc. will only be made in Polish version.

The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity will play for the 19th time! Just like in the previous years, on the second Sunday of January (01/09/2011) thousands of volunteers will be raising money needed to buy modern equipment for Polish hospitals. In 2011 we will play for children’s urology and nephrology.

Why these two branches of medicine? Let us explain with the words by Sylwester Prokurat, Assistant Professor, Ph. D.:

We would like to be able to detect diseases of the urinary tract earlier, because this enables early treatment and urological intervention. The reason why it is so important is that an early diagnosis may have a considerable impact on the patient’s future life.

When a developmental defect of the urinary tract is detected in a little patient, additional diagnostics is necessary, including bladder functioning tests. Since very often such defects are spotted in newborn babies, it is crucial to provide early treatment with the help of precise urological devices.

Another significant problem connected with kidney patients is the growing number of cases of severe kidney damage. As medicine progresses and new difficult yet necessary procedures are being introduced such as bone marrow transplant, liver transplant or heart transplant, the number of patients with acute kidney insufficiency is growing.

It is extremely important that the doctor has the access to so-called continuous hemofiltration methods, instead of having to send a patient to another clinic, sometimes hundreds kilometers away, where it is possible to eliminate toxins. Today, so-called intensive nephrology also includes early kidney support treatment or continuous hemofiltration treatment, aimed at stabilizing the patient, controlling the amount of water in his or her organism, supporting treatment of sepsis (especially within the first 24 hours), and eliminating toxins in cases of mushroom and drug poisonings.

In all those cases time and accessibility of treatment play a decisive role. Modern continuous hemofiltration devices give doctors a wide range of possible treatments, including plasmapheresis (therapeutic plasma transfusion) used in cases of poisoning. These methods are recommended and used in all European countries.

That is why it is very important now that specialists from the fields of nephrology, urology and intensive care work together in order to: